How to Watch a Movie

by David Thomson

From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience.

Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (recently released in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema. Now he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each element of the viewing experience, considering the significance of everything from what we see and hear on-screen—actors, shots, cuts, dialogue, music—to the specifics of how, where, and with whom we do the viewing.

With customary candor and wit, Thomson delivers keen analyses of a range of films from classics such as Psycho and Citizen Kane to contemporary fare such as 12 Years a Slave and All Is Lost, revealing how to more deeply appreciate both the artistry and (yes) manipulation of film, and how watching movies approaches something like watching life itself.

Discerning, funny, and utterly unique, How to Watch a Movie is a welcome twist on a classic proverb: Give a movie fan a film, she’ll be entertained for an hour or two; teach a movie fan to watch, his experience will be enriched forever.




From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Criticism, Essays, Cultural, Adult

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2015

About the author

David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve really had a plateful of old white men woozily blurting forth about their distant childhoods, O the poignant poverty, sexual scarcity, familial wit wisdom and woolly warmth, distant father, cloying mama, oh the songs and the laughter, the tears and the bonks on the cranium, ooh the discovery of Ingmar Bergman and the Bride of Wittgenstein – I had Woody Allen’s version (Radio Days), Colum McCann’s version (Let the Great World Spin), Julian Barnes’ version (The Sense of an Ending) and now I get David Thomson rhapsodising about Citizen Kane, Psycho, Preston Sturges, Gary Cooper, Max Ophuls and the wonderful experience of going to a picture palace in 1951.

I did not need another bucketful of dewey eyeballed nostalgia.

But I got one.

*

There’s something unpleasantly seen-everything-nine-times about David Thomson, because he’s seen everything nine times and appears to remember each screening (the ratio, the soundtrack, the exact colour of the popcorn – he’s the Funes the Memorious of cinema). On page 55 he sdays that ten years after Casino was released

The film played regularly on cable tv stations. I found myself watching it repeatedly (although I still reckoned I did not like it).

Very remarkable how much time DT will devote to rewatching a movie he doesn’t like. He must have had time to burn in 2005.

*

This book is a series of themed swirling hectic meditations on movies and what they do when they do what they do.

Here’s what I don’t like about this book

Nicolas Ray wanted to believe that rebellion could remake the world – it has been an American fallacy – while Ozu understands that melodramatic alteration will be buried in time; that is his limitation. (p81)

Here, DT is comparing Tokyo Story with Rebel Without a Cause , both mid 50s movies but otherwise unconnected one may think. But DT wishes to compare them.

Nicolas Ray wanted to believe that rebellion could remake the world

Well, maybe in Rebel without a Cause which is one single movie but is this true for all his movies? Or is that just a rhetorical flourish?

it has been an American fallacy

but it’s not American or a fallacy – rebellion did remake the world several times – the American, French and Russian revolutions, the Arab Spring, the creation of Israel, how many examples of rebellion remaking the world do we need? So that phrase also seems like a rhetorical aside.

while Ozu understands that melodramatic alteration will be buried in time; that is his limitation.

Again, is DT saying we are able to generalise about a director like this so knowingly and glibly? And “rebellion” has now become “melodramatic alteration” which is apparently always superficial according to Tokyo Story. There are just too many elides and leaps of critical fiat here.

*

Talking about the cut in movie editing, on p 113 he says

The more a film cuts, and the more adventurously, then the readier we are for its astonishment. Some sense of dread or magic is never far away, not even in naturalistic drama. Those cuts can hurt, but they can transport and they can heal old wounds.

Well I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. It sounds a little mystical to me. Here he is again in mystical mode:

Sometimes we end up watching things we might never have chosen. Yet still we cling to this idea – tell me a story, because the story can avert or deny the most frightening thing of all, the abyss, the great hole of insignificance, and the dread that we have no story.

If you think “yes, we all do this, how true” then this is the book for you.

But at least this given me a chance to present the following amusement. I call it:

2015 IN MOVIES : BEST AND WORST I SAW THIS YEAR

PART ONE : NORMAL MOVIES

Tomboy – a French movie – my must see of the year although it’s 4 years old – 10 year old girl moves to a new neighbourhood and is mistaken for a boy and she realises she likes that… this could have been unwatchably icky but a magical performance by the kid and an unsentimental director between them created a nearly perfect minor masterpiece



Starred Up – British prison drama with a ferocious young actor in the lead who is a new phenomenon – Jack O’Connell – don’t get in his way

’71 – fast, gritty British drama about one night in the hell of the Northern Ireland troubles in 1971 – also stars Jack O’Connell, he is the man

X + Y – believe it or not, a sweet little film about an autistic spectrum boy who’s a maths whiz – sick bag is not required




Trainwreck – yes, I thought it was okay too, even quite funny if that’s not asking too much

Two Days One Night – French movie where this woman is just trying to avoid being made redundant at her tiny factory – sounds a bit downtrodden and suffering and it is too, but good

PART TWO : HORROR MOVIES

Requiem for a Dream – not recommended even if it is brilliant, it’s soooooo horrible

[Rec 2] – Spanish horror, great follow up to a favourite of mine [Rec] which is a found footage zombie outbreak movie which is freeeeeeaky

Rabid – what a last scene – although filmed in 1971 this very early Cronenberg still has an impact

Alice Sweet Alice (1976) – also for retro horror fans, this is a mean-spirited treat – Brooke Shields getting knifed? obese paedophiles? – yes, no problem, step right inside

The Loved Ones – just a little indie genre piece but cool fun all round




The Host – Korean creature feature which has more heart and soul than ten Jurassic Parks sewn together

PART THREE : DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR

The Children’s Hour (1961) – with Shirley Maclaine and Audrey Hepburn – two women running a boarding school are suspected of having an “unnatural relationship” – I thought they just wouldn’t be able to tell this story properly in 1961 and I was wrong - a devastating film, both leads brilliant




PART 4 : DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR

Twenty Feet from Stardom – the story of the backup singers from the 60s and 70s, esp Darlene Love – well, this was a shoo in for me

PART 5 : AMERICAN INDIES OF THE YEAR

The Puffy Chair – my kind of whimsical sad but true teeny tiny movie



Mistress America : not a patch on Frances Ha but still a merry trip to semi-la-la land

OVERHYPED MOVIES OF THE YEAR

Termynator Genysys - well, I do love T2, but each T has to find such an elaborate variation/alternative time stream/what the flook to justify the new story that by the tyme we gyt to genysys it’s too byring to try to understynd

It Follows – the best horror for years? Nope. It didn’t make sense and my flesh did not crawl once

Whiplash – great performances of course but a horrible horrible movie

WORST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR

Mum and Dad – British no-budget horror which has to be seen to be believed only don’t ever see it



Boudu Sauve des Eaux – trying to catch up on the classics, what a mistake, how tripe was this movie

Pan’s Labyrinth – nice makeup but not nice allegories – could this film lumber more if it was a diplodocus? No.

Vertigo – a rewatch just to confirm that I am not like other people – so many love & revere this movie where I just nod off and I don’t care if he’s trying to make her into the other one and if she fell or was she pushed – by the end I wanted to run up the bell tower and launch myself into space too, I could see her point

Werckmeister Harmonies – this got 97% on the tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes so again I am swimming against the tide, but really this was like a cruel parody of difficult European art house movies – scenes extended insanely after the dialogue has stopped (uncut shot of two guys in closeup walking along a street for three minutes, just one of many examples); big enigmatic symbol (a dead whale is brought into the centre of the town in a giant lorry); no explanation about who is fighting who for control of the town; endless shots of our puzzled hero’s fizzog as he trudges back and forth, okay we’re outta here

MOST IRRITATING PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR BY FAR

Jason Schwartzman in Listen Up Philip – all the people in all these movies that get killed in various nasty ways, and he wasn’t one of them. Ain’t no justice.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomson is the author of many books and articles on film. For the cinemaphile, he has written The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, which I have reviewed and still enjoy reading.

This recent book is his take on many issues including the changes in technology that take us from the movie theater to the 4 or 5 inch screen of our phone.

Thomson is a controversial movie critic. He often seems to adopt an attitude of how only his perspective can possibly be the correct one. He can be persuasive, but he can come off as a bully. I am sure his fellow critics smart under his written lashes.

The title of this book is a misnomer. Thomson never gets around to telling us how to watch a movie. He does tell us, with many classic examples: “how David Thomson watches a movie.” If you are into the historically significant movies, this can be interesting and entertaining, but it is somewhat of a bait and switch. I’ll put up a few examples shortly, but (for the above reasons) I can’t give this more than 3 stars.

Postscript:
Here is one excerpt discussing the movie, Citizen Kane, that captures his style and reflects on the popular critic, Pauline Kale:
"Against the grain of the film's mounting eminence, Pauline Kael published her long essay, "Raising Kane," which sought to bring the picture down to size. She claimed it was a shallow masterpiece at a time when other writers were finding new depth in it. Put Kael's point of view was contested by her own avowed habits. She was the leading American critic of that moment, and a very good writer. But she claimed that she only ever saw a film once. The rationale for that was worth listening to. She said that movies were and ought to be sensational, immediate, and so compelling that one had to rely on the first viewing. If it didn't work straightaway, then it wasn't working. I sat next to her at a screening and she had a fierce intensity, hunched over her notebook, looking up at the screen and then at her notes in rapid succession---and the notes seemed to be fluent sentences, not just jotting for memory. It was a disarming encounter, for plainly Kael was not always looking at the screen. If she really believed in nothing but the first time, how was she getting it all? Or was her mind being made up as she watched the film and by the process of writing?..."

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently only about 5 good movies have been made since the 1960s ... this book is the equivalent of "Old Man Yells at Cloud. "

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

How to Watch a Movie is a pretty good but significantly flawed book (well, okay, it has one big flaw, that I'll get to in more detail below). It is egregiously mistitled, though that's not the flaw I'm concerned with. While learning how to watch a movie—actively engaging with the content of a film—sounds like an excellent subject, that's not at all what Thomson's after here. A more accurate name would be How I Watch A Movie, or even How I Watch Movie, given how frequently (and apparently at random) Thomson omits the article from that phrase.

This book does not provide any detailed instructions for watching films, in fact. He eventually admits this explicitly:

I do not intend to present you with a tidy pantheon or a set of correct answers.
—p.56

How to Watch a Movie, then, is really just an excuse for Thomson to ramble on about the movies he's seen and the venues he's seen them in. His reminiscences about childhood hours spent in the grand movie palaces of Britain—a bygone pleasure these days, it seems—are nostalgic highlights.

And, y'know, that part's okay—better than okay, even. David Thomson's career as a film critic is decades deep and as broad as the field itself, after all. He's written engagingly about popular hits, genre films and niche interests, critical darlings, and total bombs. His opinions are worth paying attention to, as I already knew from having read and really liked The Whole Equation, back in 2011.

Thomson does even, sometimes, let slip a few words of good advice in How to Watch a Movie:

At some time in your moviegoing you should give up the screen for a moment and study the people watching, their features bathed in light.
—p.35

*

However...

How to Watch a Movie is also very, very male-oriented. Thomson focuses almost exclusively on male actors, male directors, male producers, etc. From Thomson's perspective, men make movies. Women are just what men focus their cameras on. The subject is objectified.

Of course, that just reflects the pervasive biases of the movie business in general, but film critic Thomson's perspective on this issue is almost entirely uncritical.

And, more than once, Thomson even participates. This is the passage that stood out to me:

If that pretty girl (whatever pretty is) walks by, you notice her, you look at her, you focus on her, and you pan with her walk. You hope you're seeing her (as in looking into her) and you would not mind if she noticed that. For you would like to earn her attention. If attention has to be paid, it is encouraged by being noticed. "That guy was looking at me again today," she may tell a friend. To which the friend replies, in a take-it-or-leave-it way, "Maybe he fancies you."
Then there's a look on the girl's face that's so hard to describe—hopeful, dubious, wistful, ready—so we're going to need an actress. You can say to the actress, Well, tomorrow, when we do that scene, how would you like to play it? She may reply, You're the director, what do you want me to do? And in intriguing ways, this discussion is what a real girl might puzzle over while deciding whether she should look up at the watcher and give the hint of a smile, a germ of recognition, or of being noticed?
—p.62

It does not seem to have crossed Thomson's mind that "the girl" might not want that notice—or indeed any attention—from the "you" he addresses so confidently.

I also think it's telling that the female film director Thomson mentions most often throughout How to Watch a Movie is Leni Riefenstahl, who is (1) best known for her collaboration with Adolf freakin' Hitler, and (2) dead.

Now, Thomson does acknowledge—albeit briefly, and in passing—Hollywood's female filmmakers. On pp.68-69, he specifically and approvingly mentions Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow and a couple of other living female directors, and points out disapprovingly that cinematographers are still (as of 2015) only 2% female.

But then, after that, it's back to the men who make movies, and the beauties they make movies about.

*

How to Watch a Movie is not all bad, though, not by any means, especially if you're comfortable with (or at least used to) that male gaze.

Thomson definitely gets in the occasional zinger, too:

{...}and even Harrison Ford, who used to be the most profitable screen hero of all time until he woke up one day as a crotchety geezer.
—pp.175-176

Perhaps (as is so often the case) the author best sums up his own work...

You came into this book under deceptive promises (mine) and false hopes (yours). You believed we might make decisive progress in the matter of how to watch a movie. So be it, but this was a ruse to make you look at life.
—p.226

*

There is another potential title for How to Watch a Movie buried in Thomson's Acknowledgements: the phrase "a lifetime in the dark" (p.229).

To some extent, I think, that's where we all spend most of our lives... but there is comfort in the dark, isn't there?

And occasionally we even see flashes of light.

[Gwendolyn Neal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected this to be good because it only took the author 10 pages to compare a Gatorade commercial to "Triumph of the Will", but then slowly whatever potential insights I could gleam from it declined into the kind of dense and bad writing infused with personal hangups, contradictions, and irrelevant interjections that gave me serious flashbacks to reading Howard Bloom.

Also the extremely creepy and constant discussion of actresses and young women in general wasn't pleasant.

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A well-thrown pebble that skips across the surface of cinephilia. Could be a handy Film Lit 101 book, but beyond that lacks any real lessons or insight. At least it's a quick read.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear the author was a producer on the Robert Redford film "All is Lost". There's no other explanation for that film being cited as an example as often as it is.

[Dahiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

No lo encontraba!! Este es un libro muy bueno para alguien que le gusta el cine. Está muy bien escrito y resulta muy interesante.

[João Barradas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um filme é uma obra fruta da ilusão que aufere retratar uma realidade nem sempre vivenciada mas uma e outra vez escalpelizada.
Mesmo aqueles que garantem ser baseados em facto (os verídicos já nos fazem cair em pleonasmos) ou os ditos documentários, mentem pois a reprodução em imagens de qualquer história sofre influências dos actores que, por muito mérito e trabalho, não conseguem esconder a sua essência ao longo da sua interpretação, do realizador ao seleccionar os melhores planos e falas de destaque, dos produtores por condensarem um puzzle de ideias de acordo com as suas crenças. Lembro-me de, em pequeno, proferir uma célebre frase "os únicos filmes reais são os filmes pornográficos". Mas inclusivamente esses sofrem influência de fármacos para prolongar o estímulo sexual.
E o sexo, a par da violência, são dos temas ais retratados na grande tela, qual base da pirâmide de valores de Maslow. Para lá do argumento, que igualmente sofre uma influência experimental de quem o escreve, há a iluminação, a decoração, o vestuário, o som a fotografia... Enfim, uma panóplia de indivíduos que trabalham em prol de uma grande espectáculo passível de ser desfrutado pelo nobre público.
Esta obra apresenta os meandros desta indústria dos milhões que magicamente torna os nossos desejos em algo visível, como se fosse detentora de uma máquina leitora de mentes. Infelizmente, perde-se nos exemplos cinematográficos, apresentando incessantemente os mesmo para diferentes áreas, atribuindo-lhes os mesmos elogios ou descréditos, o que desmotiva o leitor a continuar a explorar os argumentos apresentados
Resta perder-mo-nos nesta fábrica de sonhos por realizar mas com o objectivo de um dia os cumprir, como o Feiticeiro de Oz prometera aos seus súbditos.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - You don't have to look very far to see that this book has some pretty low ratings on Goodreads, but I wonder how many of those reviewers
1) have never read anything else by Thomson
2) took the title as a literal textbook
3) are perhaps guilty of falling prey to one of Thomson's main points, that many people watch films simply because they want to be entertained while not having to think too hard.

Yes, the book is uneven, Thomson is pretentious and is often a windbag, but there's some real insight here. Well worth a look.

[Tom Holehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry, text book style - Roger Ebert was more fun to read.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to the history of Hollywood and film criticism there's nobody like David Thomson. This isn't a textbook on the subject but rather a rambling discourse. My Netflix list just doubled.

[tuğçe]

me starting this book was at the beginning of my reading slump unfortunately. but thanks to it though, in these past months i gradually overcame it while reading it slowly. now i want to read a lot of books finishing this. my god, it was a ride. i realized how different i view movies thanks to it, definitely added some flavor to the concept of watching movies for me. me and the author have a lot of different opinions, i mean, but as i'm really interested in cinema in a huge geek level and i just started to built it a bit more, reading things about cinema is always great. also, there were some good points he made too, i'm not gonna lie. i don't know. cinema is good, cinema is great!

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up at a thrift store because the cover draws the eye (I’ll judge any book by it’s cover if it has Grace Kelly on it!), the title is a real nice provocation and a concept I’ve always found intriguing. What we really see when we are watching a movie. What studios want us to see. When he’s comparing Gatorade commercials to triumph of the will he was cooking but couldn’t sustain the level of takery I’d want from something like this Writes like a man who has lost the passion for WATCHING movies but who hasn’t at some point. Still insightful about the movies he’s written about previous.

2 1/2 stars

[alexander · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe there’s a mismatch in expectations but I found this deliberately obtuse for an endlessly rich and interesting topic, with unnecessarily long diversions into analogies that at most should have been used once or twice to make a point, yet the author seems uninterested in teaching the reader anything. Here I cannot say I really understood whether the book had any particular purpose, and was more than once a bit put off by the strange vulgarity

[Anbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Film only works in the dark, and because of that safe distance from life."


I had to put down the book and then pick it up again months later before I started "getting it", and even after finishing the book, I'm still kinda ???. Thomson's insights and anecdotes make the book an interesting, albeit longwinded and somewhat outdated read. I can't exactly say I know how to watch a movie now (clickbait title, the book's more so an analysis of the medium of films with references to some recent film history), but I can say I have collected a long list of film recs :).

[Eric Gesualdo]

Really funny. Took me about halfway to grasp the satire since it was meshed with super dope history and a practical thinking about the industry at large. Will read again at some point.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll be blunt: I hate this book.

The problem isn't with the information author David Thomson provides, or with the fact that anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time reading and learning about film, film theory, and film criticism will nothing new here; there are always going to be people coming to film with a serious interset who need a place to begin.

No, the problem with HOW TO WATCH A MOVIE is that as a writer and critic, David Thomson is fucking insufferable. Thomson is obnoxiously precious towards his subject and desperate to sound profound and clever, despite the fact that his book is little more than a general introduction to some basic considerations one should have in mind when looking to study cinema. It isn't enough for Thomson to be passionate about the cinema and share his love of it; he has to romanticize it, to speak of it in terms that suggest its "magical" qualities while also shoring up his seemingly lingering intellectual and class anxieties. Indeed, Thomson's writing is often staggeringly absured in its faux-profoundness, so much so that had the book branded a parody (and attributed to, say, Jay Sherman), I could almost buy it.

As a seasoned film fan and student, I can easily shrug off HOW TO WATCH A MOVIE, but I can easily see Thomson turning off budding film geeks. Unlike many of the best contemporary critics, there is a condescending quality to Thomson's writing, and creepily sexist quality (though I am sure Thomson would challenge that description). His descriptions of actresses and their roles after have a leering quality of a creepy old man, no matter how he tries to explore the sexism of film like PRETTY WOMAN.

So yeah, I would honestly avoid this book. You are far better off looking for either a more strictly academic book or an introduction to film analysis text for a first year film course.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book topic veers off the path of my normal book taste onto a side road of "hmmm...this sounds interesting." Recommended by a man (they seem to always have varied book tastes in a way that women do not), I thought I would expand my horizons and read something I've never read about and because it I felt like it at the time.

And it proved to be what I sought it out for - interesting. It covers topics like: music in a film, what kinds of movie shots there are, difference between fact and fiction in film, purpose in movie watching, story ideas, etc.

The author uses movies to describe everything in the book. But if you haven't seen those particular movies to which he refers, you could be a bit lost and not quite get the gist of it. Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorcese, 1940-1950's movies, Bogart & Bacall - these kinds of movies are mentioned throughout.

It's not as if this book is essential to movie watching, but it gives you some things to think about next time you watch a movie. And if you're interested in an in-depth analysis of the movie, Psycho, you've come to the right place! I learned that Marliyn Monroe made about 100,000 a movie while Elizabeth Taylor (a smarter business woman) made a cool million for Cleopatra. I learned that the stabbing shower scene in Psycho was overlaid with someone stabbing a melon (instead of actual flesh). I learned that Fred Astaire was quite picky about how his dancing scenes were shot and that Rita Hayworth wasn't as a good a singer as she was a dancer and whose voiced was dubbed by Martha Mears for "Covergirl".

If you like movies, you might like this.

[Jarvo · Rating 3 out of 5]

After all this time you'd have thought I knew how...David Thomson has an unusual way of writing about film. Although immensely knowledgeable about both the history and craft of film making he eschews jargon to try and focus on the experience of watching films and why they did, or didn't work for him. In outline this looks like a quite conventional introduction to films with chapters on things like the shot, editing, narrative, the relative importance of actors, directors, and the other people who work on films. But you are not going to get anything as straightforward as a description of continuity editing or classical Hollywood lighting, although the impact of both editing and lighting are discussed. Instead there are long ruminations on the differences between looking and seeing and our changing experience of screens, with occasional wonderful passages on canonical films (for example M, Citizen Kane, Psycho and Persona). If you are familiar with Thomson's work you have probably heard some of this before, but it is still much the best writing on the subject.
(The author really does need to give serious attention to how he writes about women).

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed. Usually I've found Thomson's books to be more insightful, humorous and informative, and was eager to learn, after almost 70 years of watching movies, to find out if I was doing it wrong. Guess not. There really wasn't anything new here, except for a few autobiographical anecdotes which were delightful. He has a wealth of cinematic knowledge which I've enjoyed over the years, through both hearing him in person on several occasions and in reading other works of his.

[Kristine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt like a young waitress stuck behind the counter at the mercy of an old man with a captive audience. I don't know why I stuck with it. I really enjoyed the beginning, but it took me forever to read it because it just got so boring. It lost all style and became a weird stringing together of seemingly random thoughts that were highly subjective.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't see the point.

[Al Bità · Rating 3 out of 5]

Books on the movies always have something of interest for the reader, if only because they represent a person’s responses to films one may or may not have personally seen. This could reinforce one’s own prejudices, or may stimulate a re-consideration of the work in question; and underlying all this there is the possibility that one might disagree completely with the author. None of these considerations are necessarily inimical to the reader’s enjoyment in the process.

Thompson’s book is no exception. Here we have a very erudite and intellectual foray into what the author believes are important aspects in movie-making, which the attentive viewer should always take into consideration. So we have a very general introduction into such things as: casting; filming; settings; sound; editing; narrative; screens; etc. One need not feel overawed by the technical matters involved — Thomson is a very easy-to-read writer, and is always informative, and (indeed) educational; and he has a very wide and all-embracing approach to the arts and crafts of the cinema.

However, the reader will soon notice that much of the “flesh” of the book consists on personal responses (nothing wrong with that — after all, aren’t all of us in the same boat when it comes to what we might like or dislike about a movie?) Indeed, it is the very complexity and complications of just about every aspect of filmmaking which almost impels us into contemplating and imagining possible alternatives, such as: what if a different actor had been chosen; what about the use of colour and sound has been different; how about which shots have been used as opposed to other shots that ended on the cutting room floor; and what variations to the editing, both in picture and sound might have had; and so on… In a sense, all these issues are side issues. In the end, surely, it is the final product which is the film in question, not what might have been, which determines our responses to, and evaluation of, the work we are watching.

Or is that too simple a response? The more one knows about the global film product, the more one realises that in total, just about every possible “side issue” can, in fact, be the issue in one film or another. Try to combine all these into a coherent assessment of cinema, and one finds that nothing appears to be fixed and immutable, even as we are watching a very fixed and immutable end product! A question of too much knowledge, perhaps? Ultimately, however, we can readily appreciate how very competently a “simple” advertisement can be in evoking a response in us — something the advertising industry has known about for some time, and utilised by it to “encourage” various responses, usually (but not always) with the purpose of enhancing some commodity or other (and this includes conceptual, societal, patriotic and other “qualities” of life as well.

All of these issues build up throughout the book; and Thomson seems to be aware that something more is at stake than just about watching a (any) moving image — with the emphasis on the “watching” part rather than the “movie” part… and that all this is somehow part of our understanding of “life” — an extension I have difficulty accepting, except in the most general terms (one can learn about “life” simply by watching Nature; it is not an essential aspect of cinema, except in a slightly pretentious way). Thomson concentrates his conclusion by selecting two works for our consideration: Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona. and Diego Velázquez’ painting Las Meninas: I get the “watching” part in regard to both; but not really the “life” part.

On p. 226 of his book Thomson “confesses”: “You came into this book under deceptive promises (mine) and false hopes (yours). You believed we might make decisive progress in the matter of how to watch a movie. So be it, but this was a ruse to make you look at life.” I am not convinced he has succeeded in this regard. Further, in the very last sentence of the book, Thomson makes a more startling remark: “If you really want to watch a film, you must be ready to recognise your own life slipping away. That takes a good deal of education. But you have to be stupid, too.” Make of that what you will!

[Jack Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was great, I think that it’s really changed the way I’m going to watch films. Xoxo

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a book about the various aspects of how movies can be seen, this is quite an intellectual challenge. It does help to have seen lots of films going back in time. David Thomson is not just a film critic, more a connoisseur. I made a few notes on each chapter as I went along:

1. ARE WE HAVING FUN?
"The ultimate subject of this book is watching or paying attention (that encompasses listening, fantasizing, and longing for next week) and so it extends to watching as a total enterprise or commitment". See what I mean? So why, near the end of this chapter do we get told about Derek Jeter, "the longtime shortstop for the New York Yankees"? It's because on YouTube there is awful advert for Gatorade. Thomson is not impressed: "it leaves us like suckers".

2. SCREENS
I knew that before digital technology, projectionists had to change reels, but what I didn't know was this happens every ten minutes. Thomson tells us about the different ways we can watch movies including TV, computers and even phones. Then "our creepy readiness for real disaster, as long as it stays on the screen". As an example, he describes "M" starring Peter Lorre and how this paved the way for murders in films and shows, including "Dexter", "Psycho", "Seven", "Silence of the Lambs" and more.

3. ALONE TOGETHER
Here are the classics from the war years, and then a big discussion about happy endings, and how many movies did not. Another long piece about "Locke" (see my post of 23rd February) which Thomson ends with "No film I've seen in recent years is more eloquent on where we are now, and on how alone we feel". He calls big concrete pours as "drops" which must be the American word.

4. SEE IT ONCE, WATCH IT TWICE
In 1955 Thomson says he had only heard about "Citizen Kane" until it was shown in at The Classic in Tooting. "I was the only member of the audience". This has also happened to me. He says he didn't understand with "the plot beyond my grasp". He was not the only one. But he's now seen it many times. Unlike some films he mentions that only deserve to be seen once, if that. But he does like the Joseph Losey remake of "M" and it is on YouTube.

5. WATCHING AND SEEING
There are lots about "Rear Window" with James Stewart, obviously. "He never realises (the people opposite) can see him". I didn't know that it was filmed in an elaborate set built in LA. Then lots about "Blow Up", both on the subject and the title. Thomson tells us that the shower scene in "Psycho" was a "flagrant artfulness that wont permit the censor to interfere in his razor sharp cuts".

6. WHAT IS CINEMATIC INFORMATION?
An interesting note about CinemaScope and it's adaption for TV. All about framing the image. Thomson then selects Alfred Hitchcock to talk about "the epitome of control" and goes on to describe in detail the first 30 minutes of "Psycho" and the casting of Janet Leigh. (He says the remake is a travesty).

7.WHAT IS A SHOT?
From film cameras to our phones, he explores in great detail what goes into taking a picture. There are examples of movies to look at "decision making" of a shot, from 1944's "Lara" to 2014's "Gone Girl".

8.WHAT IS A CUT AND DOES IT HURT?
We get a piece about tracking shots which I love. Obviously a mention of the beginning of Hitchcock's "Touch of Evil" but nothing about "Goodfellas" which I think has the best of these. Cuts in time include those in "Citizen Kane" and then onto the Directors Cut. A good section on editing where Thomson says "Let editing act as an accelerating force in a story". And then "cross cut close ups".

9.WHAT DO YOU HEAR
In my case,now, not everything. There is more about "Psycho" and how Bernard Herman's score amplified the scene in the shower. Then how changing the composer on "Chinatown" was a masterstroke. But much more about Orson Welles who "knew and cared the most about sound" having started in radio where the 1938 broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" led to being given a chance directing movies. "Before Welles, no movie director had had such aptitude for sound , or such experience with it's potential for trickery". An interesting bit about dubbing and then the fact movies now have sound designers. Thomson notes the sound of the train as Michael Corleone prepares to kill his enemies in "The Godfather". There are mentions of many movies where music plays a big part.

10. WHAT IS A STORY AND DOES IT MATTER?
Why does the writer go into so much detail (4 pages) about the plot of "All is Lost"? I have to agree that J C Chandor is a great director (I also loved "Margin Call" and "A Most Violet Year". Just a shame "Triple Frontier" is only on Netflix.) But we don't need to hear the plots of all the films Thomson mentions to know about stories.

11.WHO MAKES THESE MOVIES?
An interesting piece about "The Bandwagon" where Fred Astaire never had a credit as director even though he insisted on the way his dance numbers were shot. The full figures of the dancers had to be seen. We do have examples of just how many people it takes to make a movie and what their contributions are. Then "the last category pf the people who make the movies - ourselves". How our attendance influences what and how movies are made.

12. WHAT DOES A HERO DO?
Here is Tom Hardy in "Locke" yet again. In comparison comes Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Expendables" and how it became "a rest home franchise for for male superheroes who have seen better days". We get a lot about Denzel Washington in 2014's "The Equalizer" when he was about 60. Thomson tells us that the violence was not the worst but bad enough. And it does go on and on. So does his review over another four pages. But then a note about "Deja Vu" directed by Tony Scott where I agreed "the more you see it the better it gets".

13. CAN YOU SEE THE MONEY?
An amazing section about how much Elizabeth Taylor was paid for "Cleopatra" and how a $2 Million budget became $44 Million.

14. THE DOCUMENT AND THE DREAM
I'm not sure what Thomson is trying to tell us, it does ramble on. Is he running out of steam? maybe the balance of "truth and fiction"? he quote some quite obscure movies, maybe for the real film buffs.

15. WHERE IS THE SCREEN
There is something about the various formats from VHS to DVD's and onto YouTube etc. Thomson talks about aspect ratio, and how I remembered seeing that DVD of "Casino" in widescreen but huge amounts of blank screen at the top and bottom. The conversions these days are far better. For me, I need the cinema to be able to concentrate and not let my mind wander, or get up and make a cup of tea.

To summarise, there is an awful lot of deviation which may have been padding? But it is the most intelligent and intellectual book I have ever read about movies. Sometimes quite hard work, but overall essential reading for those interested in this subject.

[Andreia Cordeiro · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uma leitura um pouco pesada e com uma visão machista do mundo do cinema, ainda assim há alguns aspetos interessantes e relevantes sobre o modo como se vê filmes, mas não é de todo esclarecedor nos juízos de valor que atribui a alguns filmes, sendo por vezes desconfortável a forma como descreve as mulheres.

Frases que marcam
"Atualmente se pudéssemos examinar uma fita de celuloide de um filme com 24 frames por segundo, veríamos uma série de fotografias paradas, uma a seguir à outra. A separação é suprimida e substituída por continuidade e duração porque, ao passar um certo número de frames por segundo, o olho e o cérebro veem vida, ou algo tão semelhante à vida que é indistinguível dela. Chama-se a este fenómeno persistência da visão"

"'Conta-me uma história' implorávamos nós quando eramos miúdos, quando na verdade desejávamos tantas outras coisas. A história é uma forma de afastar o sono (ou de o extinguir), quando o organismo da criança ainda não confia por completo no hábito de acordar. Significa também uma relação com quem conta a história: uma voz a contar-nos uma história é o modelo de toda a intimidade na vida. Foi ai aceder ao desafio da história que o cinema deixou de ser uma moda passageira para se transformar numa forma universal de entretenimento e numa arte. Ainda assim, o cinema é um fenómeno curioso: O contador de histórias pode adormecer antes da criança, no entanto, o filme é uma história, uma continuidade, que prossegue sem nós. É o tempo em si, e o tempo não tem de ser organizado, a não ser por nossa insistência."

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Thomson has a many-decades long career as a film critic and scholar. This book of his has a rather misleading title, for while “How to Watch a Movie” might lead you to expect a clear and straightforward introduction to the technical aspect of cinema (how shots are constructed, lighting, editing, etc.), that is not what you actually get here. Instead, the book is Thomson’s very impressionistic account of how he personally approaches various films that broadly belong to the mid-century canon, with a few mentions of films from recent years or, on the contrary, the dawn of cinema.

At its best moments, this impressionistic account will still satisfy readers who came expecting that more rigorous introduction. Thomson identifies some aspects of great films that casual viewers might miss, and when we notice those details, our enjoyment of the film is deepened. At its worst movements, on the other hand, this book is just an unfocused, unedited rambling through the author’s memories of childhood and young adulthood when he saw some of these films at the time of their release.

So, be sure that you know what you are getting here.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don't think he has ever done anything better." -David Thomson, on Rob Lowe in DirectTV ads

If you've read any Thomson before, you shouldn't be surprised that this book doesn't actually show you "How to Watch a Movie," at least not in any step-by-step way. The dude is digressive as fuck. You could mix up the titles of all the chapters and probably not change a thing, in terms of how you interpret the book.

I can see how this frustrates people, but I'm sucker for sentences that make me feel smart, and Thomson loves to write those sentences. He's pretty clunky, I think, when it comes to contemporary matters... Such is the fate of any aging critic who prides themselves on a certain kind of "street smarts"... But when he's in his wheelhouse, he's a joy. I could read hundreds of pages of him if his only topics were "Psycho," "Rear Window," "Citizen Kane," and "Persona." And, yeah, occasionally he does something really weird, like praise and insult Rob Lowe simultaneously.

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the book I thought it would be, not a book I enjoyed.
Not entirely free of insight, but boy is it tough to dig out between the endless non sequiturs, literary jump-cuts, and inscrutable pondering.

Lists of things that don't relate, endless parenthetical statements, and concepts that get picked up and dropped like Thomson was shopping for fruit made me think I was going crazy trying to track with his ideas. This sounds ruder than I mean it to be, but if in a few years we all find out the author was developing Alzheimer's , and everyone was kicking themselves for not seeing it sooner I'd probably reference this book as our first warning bell.

If you read anything, the chapter on Cuts is best by far. Or try like... another book.

[Mike Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confession: I only made it through 1/2 of this book, but that was more than enough to paint the picture of what this thing is.

Who is this book for, other than David Thompson himself? I'm always on the look out for books on how to get deeper into film. I put on a "beginner's mind" lens and enjoy a new perspective as if I am coming to "film" for the first time. Thompson does not seem to be interested in reader's getting a new perspective on film, beyond his own I guess? It's tough to even nail down any specific point he's trying to make as he goes down rabbit hole and rabbit hole, each vaguely drawn and more about...I'm not even sure.